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About mgebel

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  1. Just tried again after re-setting the page size of the sheet layer from Arch D to 36 x 24, and got this as the published pdf page size:
  2. I'm having this problem, too. Everything from top to bottom is set to ARCH D, nothing outside page boundary, and when the PDF opens, the page size is different almost every time: The following is a screen grab from Adobe Acrobat.. it should be 36 x 24. I've had different random values for this after trying to change some parameters, but never an even dimension corresponding to any standard defined page size.
  3. Just read this and thought I would chime in, as I'm modeling a project with an architect in Revit, and we have been able to send the project back-and-forth with some success. There have been some weird things happening, though, and I'm curious if anyone has encountered something similar before. 1) we get the building shell from the Architect as IFC. All geometry comes in to VW cleanly, and layers and classes map nicely. However, everything is coming in rotated about the origin by exactly 17degrees. We did a screenshare to check that his model was not rotated, and we couldn't find anywhere this odd rotation was coming from. The solution is to simply rotate all of the Revit IFC geometry -17deg every time we update the reference... annoying, but not a deal breaker. Also, textures are stripped out, but some colors come through for example, none of the glass has transparency. This is a just a bit annoying. Should IFC support textures? 2) we are modeling interior elements (mainly millwork), and sending back to the architect. We tried a large variety of export formats (not SAT, though). Nearly all of the formats we exported came into Revit with triangulated faces. In the end, we decided to go with Rhino .3dm, which translated all the geometry very cleanly, but completely stripped out all the textures and color. 3) At that point, we stopped, because we are achieving what we needed to in terms of geometry. I would be interested to know if anyone has had any more success going back and forth with Revit, while maintaining textures in both directions?
  5. Hi. I've got a head scratcher: I have a laser scan of an existing stair rail, and I want to model closely what is there, so a new rail cap can be fabricated to fit. I can easily trace the edges of the wall in plan view, but when it comes to creating the sweep, I'm stuck. The highlighted object is a nurbs curve, which is reasonably close to the top edge of the existing wall, but doesn't follow the surface of the extrude, as it was drawn separately. The round wall tool works, sort of. If one were able to convert a polyline into a round wall object, then I could probably use the sweep degree to get reasonably close, but because the existing wall was handmade, it will never be exact. I'm imagining there is a way to project the nurbs curve onto the solid to trim it, but I'm not familiar enough with these operations to figure it out. If anyone can point me towards a tool or a technique for this type of geometry, I would appreciate it immensely!
  6. Does anyone know if there any update to this since 2014 in the way that VW and dropbox interact in Multi-user environments? I am interested, because we are beginning to move into a more advanced multi-user modelling phase at my company, and I am interested in learning some best practices for avoiding frustrations. Of course, we are looking into Project Sharing as a main method, but this is problematic for certain projects that use incompatible plugins (interiorCAD, I'm told, is one of them?). Moreover, there are circumstances that we have have legacy projects that have not been setup for PS, yet, and we want to be able to toss them back and forth. Where I'm at now is simply confused about when exactly a .lck file is generated over Dropbox, and how I can avoid problems when sharing files with other users in the cloud?
  7. A brief update, I went through all of the export settings, and I converted the object to everything that I could try, and the segmentation problem in the DXF persisted, that is until I stumbled across a wiki about how DXF files work, wherein I discovered that the text version of DXF is more robust and accurate than than the binary version. It turns out that was the one setting I don't think I had tried previously, so I went back to my original polyline and exported to DXF text, and wham-o, perfect polyline curves came back. I still have yet to hear if my neighbor's machine is going to bug out again, but I have my fingers crossed. So my next question is, why would one ever want to export to DXF binary?
  8. I feel like this should perhaps be it's own thread, but problem is primarily AutoCAD failing to interpret VW 2D line objects (if not, VW failing to convert them properly...), and it also happens that I am also working on an arch... The specifics: I want to export 2d objects to DXF. I have some parts that I would like to have cut on my neighbor's CNC, which is running WoodWOP. His typical workflow involves drawing his parts in AutoCAD, then converting the DXF files to Homag's .MPR format using another program that adds on all the g-code and tooling parameters. I sent him a DXF export of the parts, which include a polyline that containts many bezier curves, fillets, as well as circles and 2d Loci. I tried exporting in all the DWG and DXF versions, but it always converts the polylines to "splines" which has the faceted problem (Neither of us knows what a spline is, but I am guessing it is what VW calls polygons). This is problematic especially for CNC, which requires that angles be outside the radius of the tool path. I had this issue with the complex line, but oddly I also was unable to get AutoCAD to register the circles as DWG/DXF circles - they apparently generated a group of arcs, instead. This problem was solved by adding the locus point, which serves as a drill center rather than forcing the circles convert accurately (the locus becomes the drill center and the arcs are ignored). I have attached a short clip showing the mouse wheel zooming in and out one click on a 3/16" fillet on an inside corner. I have the display graphics set at Best Performance, and I'm running a fairly capable machine, plus these are 2d objects. I am guessing that when it flickers on and off, it's a glitch in the VGM, but I don't know much about how that works, so it could be something else. Also, it flickers on zoom in TOP/Plan, but is off all the time when viewing the object in the 3d plane (pictured) This could be the same issue when you zoom in on a polyline that is selected, and it shows the orange highlighted object line with facts instead of smooth curves. Bottom line, though, I don't especially care about the VGM performance (at least in this context), unless it gives me a clue as to why the export module is having trouble accurately converting these lines into compatible geometry in DWG. Does anyone have any ideas about how to workaround this? I was thinking of possibly trying to convert to a different object type, but I figured I would attempt to draw on past experience before jumping down the rabbit hole. Maybe Nurbs or something else? Is it possibly because I have "Flatten 2d graphics" enabled in the export settings? My next step is to try InteriorCAD for exporting this part. Does anyone have experience with using InteriorCAD for custom3D parts/DXF export? Vectorworks Designer 2020 - [Arches.vwx] 2020-02-03 20-32-16.mp4
  9. There is a shortcut for Convert to Generic Solids, which is (win) ctrl+alt+shift+h.
  10. what has genuine advantage when talking about the Enscape workflow is the ability for a client, designer, or team leader to be in the model at one to one scale, making comments and decisions while a drafter is live updating the model to reflect the conversation. The Enscape viewer can in fact continue to review the model independently while the Revit project is being tweaked, then see the changes populate without needing to re-load. One meeting of this kind can cut down on a week or two of back-and-forth on 2d drawings, and often disambiguate a complex geometrical problem instantaneously. While it is true that a similar workflow can be utilized working strictly in Vectorworks, or else in split screen with Lumion (I have not tried the later, but it looks promising from the videos), there is a key difference in that the drafter is directing the camera in the scene. With Enscape or Prospect or any other 6DOF VR format, the designer or client is directly controlling the camera. The difference may seem subtle, but I can say that having seen people's reaction of getting to experience the project in the immersive context, there is a huge advantage (at least for now that includes a mega wow-factor from the novelty, which really helps to sell the job). Often, it seems, the best spatial understanding comes from being able to move freely around a scene to see it from different angles. I take it for granted, being used to navigating the model everyday in 3d with a spatial mouse, but I think that for many people (especially the money people on most projects I've worked on), there is a lack of ability to visualize anything but the most skillfully crafted perspective renderings, and even then there is a bit of illusion, since the person making the rendering has to make a choice of where to place the camera for the maximal effect. It goes without saying that this technology is still at the ground level, but it won't be long before it's commonplace. Once clients start asking for room-scale VR, Vectorworks is going to find itself in a serious disadvantage. Maybe one day VW will have live VR view built natively into the platform, but for the near term integration with Enscape or similar is a no-brainer.
  11. I'm using VR on a regular basis for client presentations and design reviews. I had previously been using Sketchup plus IrisVR Prospect. This worked great, because the uploaded model from sketchup retained both saved views and layers, meaning the VR walkthroughs were highly effective for reviewing vantage points and toggling on/off various parts of the model. I have not used Revit, and I have no desire to get mired in the world of Autodesk, but I am feeling very much left in the dust by the Enscape plugin, which allows the user to edit the model within Revit while simultaneously viewing in VR. I am just seeing this thread about Lumion LiveSync, and feeling very excited that this might be leading to the same thing. I will definitely be looking into Lumion. I haven't upgraded to 2020, yet, as I'm waiting for InteriorCAD 2020 to be released, but does anyone have any knowledge of how to use Lumion for real-time VR walkthroughs, or else the current/planned Enscape compatibility?
  12. Forgive me for being dense, but I am assuming that there is a big difference between a Polygon and a Polyline, as VW defines them? I wasn't able to open your file, as I'm still on v.2019, but I followed the steps and got this result. I am assuming that from this point, there is no way to get back to the Polyline object type? I tried your suggestion, and I did get a polyline back with all of the original reshape edit abilities. Thanks!
  13. What is the "weight of the vertex?" I'm not super familiar with the differences between the various types of geometry that are used in Vectorworks. I understand some basic concepts about solids, 3d nurbs, and 3d polygons, but not enough to know what makes them compatable for some operations and not for others, and what exactly is gained and lost by using one or another. Ditto the 2d geometry types. For example, I have an archway that was created by extruding a 2d polyline that I drew with bezier curves. I then extracted the face of the generic solid archway to create another part with the same curve (a piece of trim that I want to extrude along the path). I understand that if I have saved the history of the extrude, I can copy and paste the polyline back out of the original Extrude object, but I converted to generic solid at some point, that's not an option. It seems that when I use the Extract Face tool, I get a NURBS Surface object, which I can't manipulate with many of the basic 2d drawing tools, and can't get back into a polyline without getting a garbled approximation of the original. Does any one know of a workaround for this specific problem? Also, I would greatly appreciate it if someone could point me to some academic texts that go into detail about the nature of 3D CAD geometry. I really value that VW can handle so many different types of geometry, but I'm finding it frustrating to figure out the best workflows when I can't predict why conversion operations break down the way they do.
  14. I have a lot of experience working exclusively in Sketchup, and I can honestly say that I love it, and it is super powerful and fast. For generating any kind of quad-faceted geometry, which is most of architectural drawing, it's hard to match the speed of modelling. Not to mention that Layout is a snap to use, and one can generate super well designed 2d drawings with no trouble at all. After having switched to VW and gotten into the weeds with it for a few months now, I still ask myself daily if it was worth it to switch over, as I can still produce more geometry and great looking sheets, more quickly in SU. There are a LOT of limitations with SU, however, and I'm not talking about accuracy. For one thing, the simplicity, which is intrinsic to the lightning fast workflows, is also crippling when it comes to simple modifiers like fillet and chamfer. One needs to resort to 3d party plugins, of which there are many good ones, but because they are not native they tend to be buggy. For another, SU is a only a mesh modeler. While solid operations are a thing, objects (water-tight groups of faces) are still only meshes. The fact that VW deals with many forms of geometry means that there are many possible workflows and I/O options. But Sketchup is ubiquitous, which means that it is compatible with everything. I can send just about any client anywhere a native file and expect that they will be able to view it natively - I'm talking about 3d, not 2d. I.e. anyone can view a SU model and get useful info from it with the free version of the software. Also, Sketchup, in my humble opinion, is simply the best way to get an architectural model quickly into VR. Revit and Navisworks seem to have equally good VR compatibility with the current leading VR viewing platforms (enscape, insite, and prospect), but neither Revit or NW can touch SU for the speed of going from a concept into a 6DOF VR environment. I don't regret switching, though. I've been enjoying learning VW, and I can clearly see the advantages. Plus, I genuinely believe that with a little more practice VW will be a serious competitor for modelling speed. I just wish it were easier to get a VW model into a collaborative Oculus Quest environment!
  15. I just had this problem, too. I didn't perform any purge, however. I think the last command I had used before all the walls suddenly disappeared (i.e. before all the Layers became disassociated with the Stories) was a batch replacement of some lighting symbols. I went to a saved view that had a clip cube active, and wham-o, everything went haywire. I'm glad I found this thread, because I was about to go for a back-up reboot, which would have cost me a few hours of work. I have been finding that many of the objects that I have associated with story levels have had some bugs from time to time. It's usually minor, as in the story or level bound vanishes from the object info menu, then mysteriously reappears after tinkering with the object for a bit. Most of the time it seems to resolve itself, but it's a huge time-suck to have to go in and troubleshoot when something glitches. I dearly hope this bug is not a frequent occurrence in v.2020





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